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Why exactly does Walter feel that the need for a sense of connection to the universe is infantile?

Science shows us increasingly that the pagans and the mystics had it right. As we participate in warming our globe; as agriculture becomes an industrial polluter; as disease vectors cross species boundaries; as our supposed uniqueness disappears in an increase in our knowledge of our own species history and our relationship to those around us; it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain our sense of superiority over the natural world. We are an animal, and a particularly dirty animal at that; but if we embrace this identity, instead of self-righteously rejecting it, we can improve our world as much as we have degraded it.

Religion and science alike support this view; but one need only listen to the hateful rhetoric emanating from so many churches, and view the shortsighted research of so many labs, to understand that many people reject the connection with horror. They would rather die with the most toys than live and share.

If the general public turns to art to find this connection, how is that infantile? When so many of the institutions of science and religion are failing the need for connection, is it not the height of maturity to look elsewhere and accept with relief what the self-willed, self-righteous, and destructive heads of the cliques would deny them?